Despite their intimidating appearance, the giant yellow and blue-black spiders spreading across the Southeastern U.S. owe their survival to a surprising trait: They're rather timid.
A limited menu of prey may weave a tangled food web by emboldening wolf spiders of multiple species to dine on each other and even cannibalize their own, says a study from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Materials made of spider silk can be specifically modified or processed in such a way that living cells of a certain type adhere to them, grow and proliferate. This has been discovered by researchers at the University of ...
Competition for resources is everywhere in nature. It is a much riskier life for an animal whose competitor is hundreds' of times larger than itself. Tiny herbivorous pests such as spider mites are no strangers to this fate.
Scientists have long been intrigued by the remarkable properties of spider silk, which is stronger than steel yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. Now, Fuzhong Zhang, a professor of energy, environmental and chemical ...
Biologists at the University of Cincinnati discovered that underfed jumping spiders lose light-sensitive cells that are key to their vision.
On farms, spiders are important predators who control insect populations, including pests that can damage crops.
Spiders that don't weave good silk don't get to eat. The silk spiders produce to create their webs is key to their survival—but spiders live in many different places that require webs fine-tuned for local success. Scientists ...
A team of life scientists at Hunan Normal University, in China, working with a colleague from National University of Singapore, has discovered three new species of mesothelean spiders in China. In their study, reported in ...
A team of bio-scientists affiliated with several institutions in China, working with a colleague from Australia, has found that the females of some species of funnel spiders play dead to attract male sexual partners. In their ...
